May 27, 2005, Green Butte,Mt. Shasta-Phase 2

We left Seattle on the 26th and drove the marathon 570 miles to Mt. Shasta. We found a deserted side road along the mountain road at 6300 feet and spent the night.  The drive down was hot and we had the air conditioning on almost the entire trip.  We were up at 6 am and left the Bunny Flats parking area at 6900 feet around 7:30. The crowds for the Memorial Day weekend would be arriving soon and we wanted to have a quick tour before the snow turned to mush.  We followed the unplowed road towards Ski Bowl.  The area is outside the Wilderness boundary and is usually overrun by snowmobiles.  Today was a warm weekday and it was a bit early for the snowmobiles.  As we approached Green Butte, we had a great view of Sun Bowl and Powder Bowl. Both of these bowls had natural avalanche releases on all of the major aspects.  The snow pack did not freeze overnight and our hopes for a corn morning were not looking good. As we ascended the ridge of Green Butte, we looked into Ski Bowl and the massive bowl was covered with old snowmobile tracks. Also all the major slopes had recent wet avalanche debris.  We kept skinning until the mush factor became unfriendly.  At least the views were pleasing.  The descent was a giant slalom surfing event.  Wide skis were our savior and big turns were mandatory.  This area of the mountain has some great bowl and tree skiing and receives very little traffic.  When we returned to the snow covered road we noticed two snowmobiles had recently traveled over our up track.  Their tracks were a blessing and helped break the surface tension of the wet snow on our skis for the run back to the van. By the time we returned to Bunny Flats the holiday crowd was starting to assemble. It was time for us to drive to the southwest entrance of Mt. Lassen to meet some of our Sierra club friends for a weekend of day touring.  Zap